(brooding music) - [Carolyn] I'm Carolyn Currie.

Singer, songwriter, mother, and lover of music.

Join me as I listen to and speak with some of Maine's premier musical artists on "Sound Waves."

(calming music) Production of "Sound Waves" on Maine Public television is made possible by... (upbeat music) - [Announcer 1] Renys.

A main shopping adventure for 77 years.

Now in 19 locations.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer 2] Highland Green committed to fostering a resident-driven active lifestyle community for those 55 and better, with a goal of providing low maintenance living and custom-built freestanding homes on a 635 acre campus in Nature Preserve.

Since 1852, Bangor Savings Bank has been dedicated to keeping New Englanders at the heart of what they do.

That means investing in communities they serve, and supporting families and businesses.

You matter more.

- [Carolyn] And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(calming music) ("Days of Wine and Roses" by Brad Terry) (relaxing jazz music) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) I'm very happy to be here with Brad Terry.

Brad, welcome to the show.

- Well, thank you very much.

Good to be here.

- I wanna start because I wanna start at a different place because you have a brand new CD that came out.

And that was a really important moment for you to have, or this process of making it was kind of a salvation moment or something.

- Yeah, this was back in August, last summer.

I was at the point of really feeling I was, I've done it for 73 years time for an intermission maybe.

- [Carolyn] Yeah.

- And Jeff Coffin.

The saxophone player with Dave Matthews band, who I- - Yeah.

- Backing, going around in circles back about 43, or 4 or 5 years ago.

He was in Dexter High School.

And Steve Grover and I had a thing called the Friends of Jazz.

And we were doing school programs and we did a school program for Jeff at his high school.

That's where I met him.

- [Carolyn] Cool.

- And he was... And apparently, he told me that he was influenced by my playing way back then and... - How old was he when you met him?

- Well, he was 14 or 15.

He's 60 now.

- Okay.

- And he called me up.

He was visiting friends here in Maine.

He called me up and I explained that I was having trouble with my hands and the arthritis was getting in the way, and I wasn't comfortable playing.

And we met for coffee in Bath.

And he said, "Come on down to Nashville."

So I hopped in my old Dodge van and went to Nashville.

It's just, there it was.

And the first night there, we spent the night in his, couple of hours, in his studio at home with a whole tray of clarinet, mouthpieces, and all kinds of read combinations and things, trying to get things working for me.

Got that pretty well ironed out.

And the next day, we went into the Yamaha Studios in Nashville.

And he set me up with a rhythm section and a piano player.

And we called tunes and it's almost all first takes.

And I was having, I still am having trouble.

- Yeah.

- It's sort of a, I have to concentrate on basic things like fingering position that I haven't had to think about since I was 13 and got my first music lesson.

- Okay.

- And all of a sudden, now it's an issue.

And so, anyway, the album came out.

I think it's pretty nice.

Sound is pretty good.

Wonderful players.

And that's the most recent thing.

- And invigorating.

- Well, yeah.

It's not, to be honest, to me, I think I've got better things recorded over the past years.

- Okay.

- Because technically, I'm having problems.

- Okay.

- And hopefully, it doesn't show too badly, but it bothers me.

- Yeah.

- That's the way it is.

("Noble Accents" by Brad Terry) (relaxing jazz music) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) - Now, let's back up.

- Okay.

- Tell me about how you got started.

Tell me about the way you play and what drew you to jazz.

- Okay.

I started out, my mother was not shy about talking to people.

- [Carolyn] Okay.

- And she bumped into Benny Goodman somewhere.

- [Carolyn] Right.

- And Benny, she said, "Look, I got this 13-year-old.

He doesn't do schoolwork.

He just plays the recorder by ear.

He won't do his homework."

And Benny said, "Get him a clarinet."

And the local store had a deal where you bought the instrument and they gave you three free lessons.

- Okay.

- And that was it.

- Okay.

- And so, then I discovered when I was 58 that I had undiagnosed ADD majorly.

- It took you to 58 to figure that out.

- They didn't diagnose it till 58.

- [Carolyn] Wow.

- And so, learning to read music was not an option.

- [Carolyn] Okay.

- And for some strange reason, I remember, I can't remember my social security number half the time, but I remember somewhere of 8-900 tunes that are all buzzing around in here.

- Okay.

- And so, Peter has a list when we play, Peter just has a list.

- Yeah.

- And we point to something and off we go.

- Yeah, so I was watching you play, and at the end of it, once you said something like, "Well, that was an adventure or that was new."

- Yeah.

- And so, it's never the same each time?

- It's never, well, and playing with him is just an adventure every time, 'cause I never know where he's gonna go.

- Okay, so he's doing mighty.

- Everything, everything.

- Improv.

- It's something new all the time.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

And okay, recently, I've done a couple of concerts where I've explained the whole improvisation process to the audience.

- Oh, can you do that?

- And, well, capsule.

I play music the way a 5-year-old talks.

Okay?

You say ice cream and he salivates.

- Yeah.

- He can't spell the word.

He doesn't know if it's an noun or a verb.

- Okay.

- He'll ask you in a perfect sentence, knowing nothing about grammar.

- Right.

- Or spelling or anything else.

- Right.

- And I hear something in my head.

I don't know what key it is.

It's irrelevant.

- Right.

- We're having an unrehearsed conversation.

- We are.

- We have a common language.

- Right.

- It can go all over the place.

- Yes, and it might, - And we can interrupt each other.

Yeah?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- So, but you see, we're doing it right now.

- Yeah.

- Peter and I do that just 'cause we know about a couple of hundred tunes together.

- Yeah.

- So we have different things we can talk about.

And if we did this tomorrow.

- Yeah.

- It would be a different conversation.

- Yes, it would.

- Unless you recorded it, and scripted it, and memorized it like a play.

("All Alone By The Telephone" by Brad Terry) (relaxing jazz music) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) (relaxing jazz music continues) - I was talking to somebody yesterday about this sense of self-doubt and how do you, I mean, how do you just like, blow it off and keep going?

- Yeah.

- And just, I guess power into a career.

- Yeah.

- And I think so many musicians are, I guess, they hold them, I certainly have felt like I've held myself back by not being as confident as I would like to.

- I think, I mean, I've known some people, not only musicians, who are completely paralyzed by stage fright.

- [Carolyn] Oh, yeah.

- Like panic attacks and stuff and... - And it's something that can crop up on you.

- Yeah, and- - Or can sneak up on you.

- I've done school workshops and talking to the kids, 'cause they're all terrified.

They're, "Oh my God, they want me to play a solo."

And they can't do it.

- Yeah.

- And I tell them that, "Look, you know, all these people came to hear, they came to hear me.

They're not gonna hear the best clarinet player in the world, but, they're gonna get a hundred percent of me."

- [Carolyn] Absolutely.

Okay.

- And I spent some time with a guy by the name of Joe Allard.

- Okay.

- In New York, who was a very respected teacher, taught all kinds of major league saxophone players.

Sonny Stitts, Simon Gatz, all kinds of people like that.

And Joe, I spent a lot of time with him and he told me that, "If you're gonna perform the two things that have to be there, you have to plan on having fun and plan on giving a hundred percent."

- Yeah.

- "In either order, doesn't matter which comes first.

And so, if either one of those things is missing, don't do it."

- Yeah.

Well, I think about music, I think about, you know, people say, "I'm playing music."

We don't say, "We're working music."

You know, we're playing.

- Yeah.

- We play music.

I mean, that's a different word.

- Yeah.

- You know?

And I do, so I do think there's that element of fun, but also giving that fun.

- Yeah.

- And joy to people.

I was listening to your fourth song.

Was it your fourth song?

Wait, let me see which one it was.

It was a Lenny Breau song.

- Oh, the "Five O'clock Bells?"

- [Carolyn] Was that it?

Or "Jitter Ball."

I think it was number, the fifth song, Lenny Breau.

What's it called?

- Yeah, it was called "Five O'clock Bells."

- God, that was beautiful.

- Yeah.

- And it was so soulful.

- And it's not really jazz.

It's not ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

It's not.

- No, no, no.

- It's not that kind of a jazz tune at all.

- [Carolyn] No, but I'm always drawn to the two minor chords, but- - Yeah.

Yeah.

- Anyway, but it was so soulful.

I mean, you have, so when did you develop a style that was so rich and just... - I don't know, I don't know, I mean- - Because you're not just playing it.

You're... I don't know, you're inhabiting it.

- I try very hard to, I don't practice, practically ever anymore.

- Okay.

- I never did.

- Okay.

- I didn't have the discipline to sit down and play clear scales and stuff.

- Okay.

- And I try to play what I hear in my head.

- Okay.

- Accurately once.

- Okay.

- And go onto something else.

And I don't think it's, I think you can play with a nice, steady rhythm, but it doesn't have to be loud.

It can be pretty.

And the clarinet is not a big, loud instrument.

You can't do anything.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- And so, I don't mind, you know, playing a quiet note and holding it for a while.

("Five O'Clock Bells" by Brad Terry) (relaxing music) (relaxing music continues) (relaxing music continues) (relaxing music continues) (relaxing music continues) (relaxing music continues) (relaxing music continues) (brooding music)